Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Teen Town, Merrill Paper Dolls Original Art, 1946

Paper doll collectors are familiar with these Merrill books. The late JeanWoodcock, a well-known collector and author of two guide books to celebrity paper dolls, had a lot of the old Merrill stock.Her son Mark sent me these pictures of the original art via email. Here's what he said:

Hi Linda. I was in Alabama last week cleaning out my mother's house because I sold it. In the back of the closet I found a number of large manila envelopes with original sketches for Merrill books that were printed and several for books that were never produced. I've scanned three so far and I thought it might be something interesting for your blog. I scanned Coke Crown and Teen Town. There is also an alternate version of Teen Town I haven't scanned yet. I also scanned a mock up of a Charlotte Byj book that was never produced. There is some amazing stuff in there no one has ever seen. None of the sketches I found were ever shown at the Merrill Paper Doll Convention in Tulsa. In fact, a lot of them I have no memory of ever seeing myself.

And here is the alternate version of Teen Town, with "Swish Togs for Teens"!

2 comments:

Hi Linda and Mark! Thank you dedicating your time to preserving these fantastic works and beautiful paper dolls! Would it be possible to connect with you? I'd like to learn more about "Teen Town", the artist was a good friend of my grandfather... Thank you in advance for your time